Mercian was a dialect spoken in the Anglian kingdom of

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , y ...

(roughly speaking the Midlands of England, an area in which four kingdoms had been united under one monarchy). Together with Northumbrian, it was one of the two

Anglian dialects Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

. The other two dialects of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

were Kentish and

West Saxon West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

. Each of those dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

and most of

were overrun by the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

during the 9th century. Part of Mercia and all of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

were successfully defended but were then integrated into the

Kingdom of Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

. Because of the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is little to no salvaged written evidence for the development of non-Wessex dialects after

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bo ...

's unification, until the Middle English period.

History

The Mercian dialect was spoken as far east as the border of

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

and as far west as

Offa's Dyke Offa's Dyke ( cy, Clawdd Offa) is a large linear earthwork that roughly follows the border between England and Wales. The structure is named after Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from AD 757 until 796, who is traditionally believed to ha ...

, bordering Wales. It was spoken in an area that extended as far north as

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

, bordering

, and as far south as South

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of ...

, where it bordered on the

. The

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

language also filtered in on a few occasions after the foundation of the

Danelaw The Danelaw (, also known as the Danelagh; ang, Dena lagu; da, Danelagen) was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian ...

. This describes the situation before the unification of Mercia. The

Old English Martyrology The Old English Martyrology is a collection of over 230 hagiographies, probably compiled in Mercia, or by someone who wrote in the Mercian dialect of the Old English language, in the second half of the 9th century. The sources of the Old English ...

is a collection of over 230

hagiographies A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

, probably compiled in

, or by someone who wrote in the Mercian dialect of Old English, in the second half of the 9th century. Six Mercian hymns are included in the Anglo-Saxon glosses to the

Vespasian Psalter The Vespasian Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A I) is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated psalter decorated in a partly Insular style produced in the second or third quarter of the 8th century. It contains an interlinear gloss in Old E ...

; they include the Benedictus and the

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for " y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical servic ...

. In later Anglo-Saxon England, the dialect would have remained in use in speech but hardly ever in written documents. Some time after the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqu ...

, Middle English dialects emerged and were later found in such works as the ''

Ormulum The ''Ormulum'' or ''Orrmulum'' is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by an Augustinian canon named Orm (or Ormin) and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonemic orth ...

'' and the writings of the

Gawain poet The "Gawain Poet" (), or less commonly the "Pearl Poet",Andrew, M. "Theories of Authorship" (1997) in Brewer (ed). ''A Companion to the Gawain-poet'', Boydell & Brewer, p.23 (''fl.'' late 14th century) is the name given to the author of '' Sir ...

. In the later Middle Ages, a Mercian or East Midland dialect seems to have predominated in the

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

area, producing such forms as ''are'' (from Mercian arun). Mercian was used by the writer and

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...

J. R. R. Tolkien to signify his fictional

Rohirric The English philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien created a number of constructed languages, including languages devised for fictional settings. Inventing languages, something that he called ''glossopoeia'' (paralleling his idea of ''mythopoe ...

language.

Alphabet

Modern Old English orthography adds additional diacritics above certain letters to show specific phonological features. These distinctions largely were not shown in Old English. Such diacritics include macrons for vowel length and overdots for palatalization. Sound approximations from various European languages have been given.but it is best to learn by the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

transcriptions for more precise pronunciation. *''a'' for /ɑ/; General American English ''cot'' *''ā'' for /ɑː/; Norwegian ''ta'' *''b'' for /b/; English ''boy'' *''c'' for /k/; English ''cold'' *''ċ'' for /tʃ/; English ''cheese'' *''d'' for /d/; English ''dead'' *e for /e/; Spanish ''me'' *''ē'' for /eː/; German ''See'' *''f'' for /f/; English ''fun''; realised as between voiced sounds (English ''thrive)'' *''g'' for /g/; realised as �(Dutch ''getrouw)'' *''ġ'' for /j/; English ''yes'' *''ġġ'' or ''ċġ'' for /dʒ/; English ''wedge'' *''h'' for /h/; realised as (English ''hunt'') syllable-initally, as after back vowels (German ''Nacht''), and as �after front vowels (German ''Sicht''); ''h'' also represented devoicing before certain voiced consonants *i for /i/; Spanish ''mí'' *ī for /iː/; English ''three'' *''k'' for /k/; English ''kind''; ''k'' was used rarely *''l'' for /l/; English ''light'' *''m'' for /m/; English ''mom'' *''n'' for /n/; English ''sin''; realized as �before ''c'' or ''g'' (English ''think'') *''o'' for /o/; Spanish ''yo'' *''ō'' for /oː/; German ''froh'' *''p'' for /p/; English ''pip'' *''r'' for /r/; likely (a "rolled" ''r''), which is present in Scottish English *''s'' for /s/; English ''sit''; voiced to when between voiced sounds (English ''wise'') *''sċ'' for /ʃ/; English ''ship'' *''t'' for /t/; English ''tart'' *''u'' for /u/; Spanish ''tú'' *''ū'' for /u/; English ''through'' *''u'' for /u/; Spanish ''tú'' *''ū'' for //; English ''through'' *''x'' for /ks/; English ''fox'' *''y'' for /y/; equivalent to /i/ with rounded lips; Finnish ''mykkä'' *''ȳ'' for /yː/; equivalent to /iː/ with rounded lips; German ''früh'' *''ƿ'' for /w/; often replaced by modern ''w''; English ''win'' *''ð'' for /θ/, which realised as �(English ''think'') or �(English ''feather'') depending upon position; interchangeable with ''þ'' *''þ'' for /θ/, which realised as �(English ''think'') or �(English ''feather'') depending upon position; interchangeable with ''ð'' *''æ'' for /æ/; English ''bat'' *''ǣ'' for /æː/; Finnish ''ääni'' *''œ'' for /ø/; Hungarian ''jövő'' *''œ̄'' for /øː/; German ''schön'' or Hungarian ''jövő''

Grammar

Mercian grammar has the same structure as other

West Germanic dialect The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic ...

Nouns

Nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and four cases:

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...

accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...

dative In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

and

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

. These, in addition, all have

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar ...

and

plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...

forms. They can also be strong or weak.

Examples

*Strong masculine noun ''stān'' (stone) **nominative (singular, plural): stān, stānes **accusative: stān, stānes **dative: stāne, stānen **genitive: stānes, stāne *Weak masculine noun ''name'' (name) **nominative: name, namen **accusative: namen/name, namen **dative: namen/name, namen **genitive: namen/name. namene/namen

Pronouns

Personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...

s (I/me, you, he, she, we, you (pl.) and they) come in all the above cases and come in three numbers: singular, dual ('you/we two'), plural.

Demonstrative pronoun Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...

s vary in the same way described below for the indefinite article, based on 'ðes' only for ''this''. ''That'' and ''Those'' are the same as the definite article.

Relative pronoun A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the r ...

s (who, which, that) are usually 'ðe' and 'ðet.'

Articles

The

definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...

is equally complex, with all

genders Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

changing in the singular in all cases, based on variations of 'ðe.' In the plural all genders take the same word. The

indefinite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...

was often omitted in Mercian.

Adjectives

Adjectives are always declined, even with some verbs (which means they can double up as

adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...

), e.g. I am cold. Having split into weak and strong

declensions In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and a ...

(depending on the strength of the noun), these split again into all four cases, both singular and plural.

Comparative adjective Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In language ...

s (e.g. ''bigger'') always add 're.' Example: Æðelen (noble), æðelenre (nobler).

Verbs

Verbs can be conjugated from the

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...

into the

present tense The present tense ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...

, the past singular, the past plural and the

past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

. There exist strong and weak verbs in Mercian that too conjugate in their own ways. The future tense requires an

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...

, like ''will'' (Mercian ''wyllen''). There are three moods:

indicative A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality s ...

and imperative. Like most inflected languages, Mercian has a few irregular verbs (such as 'to be' ''bēon'' and 'have' ''habben''). For basic understanding, the four principal parts must be known for each strong verb: weak verbs are easier and more numerous, they all form the past participle with ''-ed''.

Vocabulary

Mercian vocabulary is largely inherited from

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic br ...

, with

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

loanwords coming via the use of Latin as the language of the

Early Church Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...

, and Norse loanwords that arrived as part of the Norse incursions and foundation of the

which covered much of the midlands and north of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. Some morphological differences between the Mercian and

include: * Change of West Saxon final to , presumably alluding to its ultimate loss in Modern English. : () ↔ * The preservation of in Proto-Germanic in some pronouns, like ().

References

*Biddulph, Joseph (2004) ''The Mercian Language: Introduction to the English Midlands Dialect of Late Anglo-Saxon and Early Middle English''. 56 p. Pontypridd: Joseph Biddulph (Text in modern English, with examples in Old and Middle English)